I took this photo from Wikipedia since it was a good, sharp image showing the floral details of Calochortus flexuosus.
A few years ago on a drive to Phoenix I stopped by to see if a population of winding mariposa lilies (Calochortus flexuosus) had set ripe seeds yet. I have been wanting to establish this species here at D:F Ranch but getting seeds can be a bit sketchy since mariposa lilies seed pods ripen quickly and split open, scattering the flat tan seeds to the winds in a matter of a day or two. Not to mention the fact that the cryptic pods blend in quite well with the grasses and shrubs that the lilies prefer to grow amongst, and that the plants themselves are not the most common vegetative component of the desert landscape either.
Ripe, nearly dry seed pods of Calochortus flexuosus showing how they split into 3 parts, allowing the flat, slightly dished seeds to scatter out. I assume that the concave nature of the seeds helps enable dispersal when the winds catch them and blow them some distance away from the parent plant.
Anyway, I was in luck and hit the pods at the best stage of maturity, which was full sized, mostly dry, but not yet open and still packed with seeds. A couple of hours of searching yielded me a couple hundred seed pods and what must be a few thousand seeds. I took these home and later broadcast them in suitable habitat on the rocky hills of my property, in the hopes that over the next 5 to 6 years at least some of them will germinate and grow to flowering size. There they will join the orange desert mariposa lily (C. kennedyi) which is already growing here and which I will treat in a separate post.
This was an unusually large specimen of C. flexuosus which had 6 pods on the stem. 1 or 2 pods is far more typical. The plant it’s growing with is paperflower, Psilostrophe cooperi.
This post was made on Facebook on May 12, 2015, four years ago. Since then we have had two very dry years, and two wetter ones. I am hoping that at least some of the seeds survived the rigors of the desert environment and began germinating nearly unseen by me in the two more suitable water years of 2017 and 2019. But this is hard to assess because the tiny seedlings look like single blades of grass and take a minimum of several good growing seasons to get large enough to start flowering. And since good growing seasons do not happen every year, this draws out the process, likely to span a decade or more. I simply do not really expect to know whether my random sowing plan actually worked for at least another 5 to 10 years. My answer will arrive either in the form of lavender flowers one day, or not. It’s out of my hands at this point.
I took this photo of Calochortus flexuosus growing east of Wikieup, Arizona about 40 miles away from me in May 2019, just last week as of writing this blog entry. It shows the nearly leafless scrambling stems that amble over the gravelly soils they prefer to grow in. The flower is about two inches across and the entire plant spans around 10 inches from emergence out of the ground to the tip of the lilac-colored petals. The plants are quite cryptic and not noticeable until they flower.
Here’s another Calochortus flexuosus from southwestern Utah, photographed on May 2, 2014.
In 2015 I also managed to collect around 50 seed pods of C. kennedyi as well from plants growing domestically upon my own property and scattered them purposely in suitable rocky and shrubby habitat, just as I did with C. flexuosus. Only time will tell whether my efforts to establish greater numbers of both bulbs will yield successful results. Both species are very worthwhile for desert bulb enthusiasts. I hope that a new crop of seedlings will eventually establish and add their unique pale lavender and brilliant orange colors to my landscape soon. 
Winding mariposa lily gets its name from the twisted, rambling stems that corkscrew around into sinuous shapes. They also go by the name of flexstem mariposa lily, and are related to the widespread sego lily (Calochortus nuttallii) which is native to much of the West. Plants usually are 12″ to 16″ tall but can vary based upon their situation. Plants growing in the open are usually shorter, and ones supported by the twigs of shrubs tend to be taller.
Winding mariposa lily seed pods in a typical habitat of Joshua tree/juniper woodland scrub. The bulbs favor rocky hillsides, presumably since they are safer from burrowing predators like gophers and ground squirrels in stony soils, which are much harder to tunnel through. Many bulbs adapt to living in rockier soils worldwide due to this particular ecological pressure from various rodent species trying to eat them.
One final shot of the orange desert mariposa lily, Calochortus kennedyi. I have many photos of this glorious species but since this post is dedicated primarily to the subtler C. flexuosus, I won’t add them here. I did however want to illustrate the plant in at least one image since it was mentioned.
My wife says that I am ridiculous every time that I bring home seeds collected in the wild. Well, at least I am not the Lone Star Ranger of the category of plant addicted 🙂 Regards. Enrico
It is good to support the growth and conservation of less common species of wild plants. 🙂 We both do it.
If there is one thing you learn from gardening, especially seed starting, is patience. But those calochortus will be worth the long wait when they start blooming on your property. Too bad you can’t fast forward time rather than the long wait.
Yeah, I wish it would be faster than the probable decade that it will likely be, but then again I also will not be investing any extra effort or attention into it, so it’s not like some sort of arduous work for little reward. As you say, it is more the opposite of nice rewards for little effort, aside from patience and timing.
If you pick them when they are sill green will they still “ripen” to dry seeds?
Probably not. Most plants need to have their seeds left on the plant, or in the fruit or pod, until they are ripe by whatever definition that is. Some plants have fruits that change color when ripe (and the seeds are ready to be dispersed by animals eating them), other plants have pods that split open, or unfurl parachutes like dandelions, or drop the seed to the ground, or any other way plants have conceived of being ready to scatter their offspring. But picking seeds prematurely regardless of the type is rather like having a baby prematurely, and survival goes way down the sooner you do it. Many plant fruits and pods that are very nearly ripe will be okay, just as a baby born a week before the due date will be okay too. But the earlier they leave the “pregnancy”, the more deadly it is to both seeds and babies.
Unfortunately, this makes some seeds undeniably difficult to gather since you can neither pick them green, nor easily catch them at the perfect state before they disperse into the wind, are eaten by animals, or fall to the soil and leaf litter. But plants aren’t always concerned with making things easy for humans – they have their own concerns and for the seeds to be rapidly dispersed benefits their survival in many cases. There’s little benefit for them to hang around on the plant waiting for a rodent or various insects to come chew them up and kill them, etc. Calochortus seeds are some of those that are trickier to gather when ripe than some plants. They scatter quickly and fall to the desert soil to hide from seed eaters, and hopefully enough escape to germinate and perpetuate the species in the future.